Language: Interesting Words

Discombobulated - confused and disconcerted or ‘thrown in a big way’

Elucidate - make clear something that has previously been unclear, to draw meaning out of it

Farrago – a mishmash, a hotchpotch, a confused mixture

Gallimaufry – the French word for stew, but also means jumble or hotchpotch

Infinitesimal – tiny, tiny, tiny, immeasurably small

Intromission – the act of putting something inside something else, an insertion

Obfuscation – derived from the Latin for dark, this is another word meaning perplexity or bewilderment.  If you are obfuscating, you are intentionally pulling the wool over someone’s eyes

Perspicacious – perceptive, observant – not so much in the literal using your eye more in the sense of the emotional, intellectual insightful.

Prevaricate – not exactly to lie but certainly to be economical with the truth; to mislead or avoid answering the question

Putative – from the Latin to think, this means supposed, reputed, but there is an implication that whatever is suggested isn’t true or proven

Ratiocination – a posh word for working something out logically or methodically

Recherché – a French word meaning ‘thoroughly searched for’

Sibylline – means not only prophetic but mysterious with it

Solecism – a mistake, a gaffe or a violation of etiquette

Stultify – literally to render stupid, but more generally to make something or someone useless or ineffective

Ameliorate – to make rich or become better

Badinage – light hearted witty chat or banter

Compunction – without hesitation or regret

Confabulate – to chat or to converse

Desuetude – disuse, not being used or practiced anymore

Enervate – to deprive of energy or vigour, to weaken either physical or morally

Exigency – a demand that cannot be avoided

Exiguous – scanty or meager

Extirpate – to pull out by the roots, to eradicate completely

Impecunious – a fancy alternative to ‘having no money’

Inchoate –meaning ‘just beginning or about to begin’, undeveloped

Largesse – generosity

Modicum – a bit, a small quantity. Often used of an abstract quality e.g. if you had a modicum of common sense you would have closed the windows before it started to rain.

Mollify – to soothe, to make less harsh or angry

Prerequisite – from the Latin meaning an acquired possession, this is the word from which we get perk as in the perks of the job

Profligate – associated with spending, lots of money, this comes from the Latin for corrupt and can mean immoral as well shamelessly extravagant.

Promulgate – loosely used to mean ‘spread widely’

Propitiate – meaning fortunate, promising good things

Rejoinder - a reply, a riposte, especially a sharp, witty one.

Repudiate – to reject, disown or refuse to admit to

Schadenfreude – literally ‘harm joy’, this means taking pleasure in the misfortunes of others, the feeling you get, not when you win but when someone else loses.

Sinecure – from words meaning without care, this means an easy job, one that pays you money without your having to do too much to earn it.

Aegis – normally in the expression under the aegis of someone, this means under their protection or patronage

Crespuscular – pertaining to dusk, dimly lit

Denizen – an old-fashioned or poetic word for an occupant or inhabitant

Detritus – literally, loose stones worn away from rock, bits, and pieces of exploding stars or other naturally occurring debris

Empyrean – it means heavenly, relating to the heavens, but also heavenly in the sense of sublime

Halcyon – from the Latin for ‘kingfisher’, halcyon means peaceful, gentle and carefree

Miasma – an unhealthy atmosphere, particularly one caused by something decomposing

Oligarch – the word is Greek in origin and refers to a member of any small group that happens to be in power

Prelapsarian – literally means ‘before the fall’ and can be used to refer to a state of extreme innocence, naively or other condition in which ignorance is bliss.

Subfusc – dark or gloomy

Zeitgeist – German for ‘spirit of the time’

Allegory - comes from the Greek for ‘to speak figuratively’

Amanuensis – a secretary or literary assistant

Bathos – anti-climax, a descent from something emotional to something banal

Circumlocution – talking around something, refusing to come to the point

Corollary – one thing that springs up as a practical consequence of another

Dilettante –   is Italian and it means someone who dabbles, who studies or works at a subject superficially’

Elision – it means the omission of a letter or a syllable from a word, as in don’t or shouldn’t

Hagiography - strictly speaking, this means writing about saints, but has come to mean any biography that is noticeable uncritical of its subject.

Patois – the French for dialect, pronounced pat-wa. In English, it means any regional variation from the written language or the jargon of a particular group.

Tautology – may also be described as a redundancy, a pleonasm or a prolixity. It simply means using unnecessary words without adding anything to the meaning.